While helping transfer a newly collected bonsai from burlap to box, I got the task of mixing the fill to go in the box around the root ball (coarse and fine volcanic, pine bark, turface, crushed granite, a couple different organics, some original mulch for the mycorrhizae). I couldn't help but notice that one of the organic soils was a very rich and velvet black in appearance, and it struck me that the best soil and most life-producing soil is a color that is often associated with death. Maybe that's why in some places white is instead considered the color of death? But then, does that mean that black in turn becomes a life-symbolizing color in those places, or does it not have any connotation, or does it still have a negative connotation?

Also, picpics